January 8, 2009

Since the point of this blog is to track the progress of the motel project, don't blame me for not updating it. I haven't even looked at any of the motel stuff for about six weeks. Maybe I'm a little bit ashamed at having a blog that I could only maintain for about a month, too...but anyway, out with the shame and on with the project, right?

Looking over my last entry, I realize that in my excitement about Ruby Tuesday's, I forgot to mention the mechanical turks. I read about the turks at waxy.org, and in late November I actually had the turks do some of my interview transcriptions. Once you figure out the process, it's cheaper than hiring someone, and easier, and way, way faster. Once I had the interviews posted online, it only took about a half hour for them to be transcribed by god knows whomever, but they did a great job and I love the idea that a bunch of strangers are now aware of annedodge.com.

In other news, I've exchanged a few emails with Richard Talley, the owner of the Motel Safari. Our correspondence made me think that what the motels really need is an online forum where owners of historic Rt66 properties can actually share resources, ideas, complaints, whatever. The site could also offer technical assistance about preservation funds, economic development programs, corridor-wide events and other marketing tools. So far, most of the resources out there about Rt66 are for tourists and aficionados. And the listserv/yahoo group, which gets a lot of traffic, is geared for the general enthusiast. There just isn't a lot of technical assistance out there for business owners. And the NPS program, should it be renewed, is not mandated to provide business or economic development services.

This may be a project for another person, since I'm trying to stay focused on the narrative and documentary aspects of my own work, but if anyone has any thoughts about funding or developing such a site, please let me know.